He went on to say that these collections create a platform that supports not only the collection itself but also other connections.  He quoted Roy Rosenzweig, founder of the Center for History and New Media, who believed in creating ” a generative platform for undefined future uses”.  Such platforms must be open and support APIs. They must also be able to disclose their metadata as another means of exploring the collection that can “enable or disable” forms of inquiry.

These observations certainly ring true with CDL’s experience in aggregating collections and supporting platforms for their use, such as for eScholarship or Calisphere.  While these services may have once been focused on becoming portals, now they are more aligned with being platforms supporting a range of uses.  We know that most users arrive not through the front door but from a referral in another source or from a web search engine.  Objects need to be able to stand on their own rather than relying on an organized pathway to their place in the collection.  They must provide context to reveal the larger collection or their related associates within it.  But there is more to be done to enable those “undefined future uses” if we think about how the text (in the case of eScholarship) and the metadata could be mined, or how to take advantage of commentary and corrections from users.  We should focus on other ways to make these services function “at the network level” or to think about the web first, something Cohen noted as a principle when designing new services.  The problem to solve these days is not discovery but how to provide context and the means to select and filter, either within the service itself or to allow others to do so.  Search facets have been used for this purpose, but there are other methods to reveal the peaks and valleys within a collection and to enable deeper exploration.  Part of our curatorial role is to analyze collections and be open to having others analyze them, to help shape them for future scholarship.

The DataUp Project. The University of California Curation Center at the California Digital Library continued to produce useful tools and services in support of digital preservation with DataUp, “an open source tool helping researchers document, manage, and archive their tabular data… within the scientist’s workflow.”

End of Term Web Archive. The End of Term 2012 project got underway to capture U.S. Government websites between the first and second administration of President Barack Obama. Project partners include the California Digital Library, Internet Archive, Library of Congress, University of North Texas Libraries and the U.S. Government Printing Office.

We have also been participating through meetings and briefings in the development of another project on the list, the Digital Preservation Network.

The rest of this “Top Ten” list is equally impressive and it is heartening to realize that so much has been accomplished in the area of digital preservation in our community. Yet I can’t help but note that it can still be a hard sell to administrators to justify new or increased expenditures for something that seems abstract, unpredictable and never ending. This challenge was magnified for me recently when I presented a paper in December, 2012 at the 3rd conference on Cultural Heritage online – Trusted Digital Repositories & Trusted Professionals in Florence, Italy.

The conference began with a parade of local officials and cultural heritage ministers from the city and region, all extolling the importance of preserving cultural heritage in the digital age. Indeed, the commitment to preservation is everywhere in this city that was the heart of the Renaissance, its museums and public places overflowing with the riches of the past. I was particularly struck by the exhibits at the Galileo Museum

Sundials, Galileo Museum, Florence

where the artifacts and experimental documentation of not only Galileo but also his contemporaries were showcased in spectacular fashion. Even with all of the support given to cultural heritage, the Italians at the conference still feel they need to shore up digital preservation, but they were focusing on standards and compliance more than on basic funding.

My presentation, on the other hand, was about how we have shifted from talking about preservation as an ultimate and costly activity to curation as part of the ongoing process of creating and managing digital content. We must be aware of incentives—such as mandates from funders and publishers rather than government initiatives–for our researchers to practice good stewardship of their research output. Thus we have invested in tools such as the DataUP mentioned by LC as well as the Data Management Planning Tool (DMPTool which made the 2011 Top Ten list), EZID (which won the DataCite 2012 Gold Award for assigning more than 250,000 DOIs (digital object identifiers) in one year), and the Web Archiving Service to make it digital content easier to manage when it comes time to preserve it for the future. After all, today’s research can become tomorrow’s cultural heritage and think what we would be missing if we weren’t able to see what Galileo was up to.

But there is another key question that lingers for me. Who is the user community or audience?

Most national libraries are mandated to be the library of record for their country’s cultural and intellectual output. The audience is the citizenry, and in most cases also the government. In that sense, it is easier for other countries to develop the digital equivalent of a national library. In fact, CDL exchanges solutions with many national libraries on the problems of capturing web-based publications which have been used in the Web Archiving Service and other digital library tools. The challenge for these libraries to collect their national output, while daunting, at least has a defined limit. In the U.S., for better or worse, no institution has the cultural or organizational authority to create a national library. Instead, our output resides in a large network populated by all types of libraries, each serving a targeted user community.

For research libraries, the answer to the audience question is “scholars”, whether they are students seeking knowledge or the faculty creating new scholarship. Faculty members have worldwide interests, colleagues and connections; their research clearly doesn’t stop at their own campus or even at the wider borders of UC. Universities inherently are about going beyond national and cultural boundaries.

Part of CDL’s vision is to “elevate the digital library to become expansively global” to stay in alignment with the needs of its primary audience. We seek to fulfill this vision in numerous ways such as the Next Generation Melvyl pilot which aims to expand the library catalog for our scholars from the 33 million items in the current version of Melvyl to 210 million items from 72,000 libraries worldwide.

The other side of this global reach is the desire by our faculty to communicate their work to the world. Recently we conducted a survey of scholars using eScholarship, which provides open access publishing services for UC. The main reasons scholars cited for using the services were to achieve broader dissemination of their work—individually and for academic research in general, and to others in their field as well as those in developing countries and even to non-academic practitioners.

CDL also participates in international conversations and organizations such as DataCite in order to support scholarly needs that may differ by discipline but share commonalities across countries. And our participation in the NSF funded DataOne brings us into contact with scientists who aim to “ensure the preservation and access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national science data” related to the environment.

Another initiative, HathiTrust began with common goals and audience—to serve the needs of scholars in creating a shared digital library. Now with more than 50 libraries in the U.S. and one international partner, HathiTrust brings an unparalleled opportunity to move beyond a national view. As Paul Courant notes, “Libraries, to the extent that their collection efforts are purposeful—and mostly they are—acquire what is intellectually and culturally important, and what is wanted or needed by their clients. This is reflected in the fact that more than 50 percent of the content in the HathiTrust Digital Library—whose partners as of this writing all reside in the United States—is written in a language other than English.” With the extension to international libraries, the breadth and depth of this library will only grow. Yet without an audience focus, even one as expansive as the interests of scholars, it is difficult to be all things to all people.

Even more so than for the content itself, the demands of the primary audience will shape the services surrounding it. Scholars care about the particular, the unique, and the unusual as much as they seek patterns, repetition and form. They seek the long tail and long time horizons. They value complete and accurate metadata and tools to delve deeply into the content of the texts. Many of the services to support their desires would be difficult for single institutions to justify or sustain, yet a collaborative approach already has yielded impressive results and promises even more if the new partners are willing to contribute.

Is it better to look to a coalition of like-minded institutions focused on the expansive possibilities of scholarly research than to start with a national view? Could we imagine a public library of similar proportions or does the audience for public library services demand a more deeply local perspective? Could we have the best of all worlds with something like Europeana to unite various digital libraries, regardless of their audience allegiance? Darnton acknowledges that existing digital libraries could be “useful and instructive” in creating a national digital library: “Think of HathiTrust, the Internet Archive, the Knowledge Commons Initiative, the California Digital Library, the Digital Library Federation, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, and other nonprofit enterprises”. Perhaps we already have the makings of an enterprise that allows each component to do what it does best for its own audience. Could we agree on a vision to unite them virtually for a common purpose, not merely to define a national boundary, but to create the basis for a truly global digital library?

Our new graphics and better search and navigation features are not just the equivalent of granite countertops and stainless appliances that bring cosmetic improvements.  In the case of the search engine, we have upgraded to our own tool, XTF (eXtensible Text Framework).  Not only is it a sophisticated search engine, it also allows us to experience first-hand what users of our services (such as Calisphere and eScholarship) encounter, as well as other institutions that use this open source software.  By experiencing it ourselves, we can continue to improve it.

As with any good logo, I hope our new graphic inspires a range of creative interpretations.  I believe it embodies our approach of providing services throughout the research life cycle and it suggests the partnerships that are so vital to our work.  As you explore CDL’s services, you will see (through graphics in addition to words) how our work reflects these characteristics.

Another focus that I am particularly proud of is the many ways you can meet our staff.  One message we heard loud and clear from our constituents is that they want to know who does what, who to contact, and what kind of expertise they offer.  Through the listings of project teams, document owners, contact names, and especially staff profiles, you can now meet our impressive cast of characters.  You’ll find librarians of course, but also linguists, artists, photographers, mathematicians, musicians, technologists, architects (of virtual spaces), and even a pharmacist.  They have skills in negotiating, project planning, marketing, publishing, information design and architecture, software development, analysis, technology management, communication, and most of all, collaboration.

You can also hear what they have to say through blogs and other social media such as Twitter and Facebook as well as their more formal publications.

I invite you to explore our new space, meet our staff, and collaborate with us to develop digital library solutions.

With the retirement of Terry Ryan (UCLA) from the Next Generation Melvyl Pilot Implementation Team, a slightly new governance structure is in place for moving the project forward.  Patricia Martin (CDL) will chair the Implementation Team and continues to also serve on the Executive Team.  Luc Declerck has been added as a member of the Executive Team, representing a strong voice for the campuses.

It will take 2 additional people on the Implementation Team to replace Terry’s notable contributions to this project.  Leslie Wolf (CDL) brings needed project management skills, and Adam Brin (CDL) contributes strong visionary and hands-on technical expertise.

Many thanks go to Terry for her remarkable deep and wide-ranging knowledge that has contributed to the success of the project thus far.  We wish her well in her retirement.

Catherine Mitchell named Director of Publishing program

CDL is delighted to announce that as of October 13, Catherine Mitchell is the permanent Director of the Publishing program for CDL.  Catherine has held the position on an interim basis since November 2007.  During that time, she has led the group to develop a new services-oriented vision and to launch an ambitious redesign of the eScholarship interface.  She was also the project manager for the Mark Twain project which successfully launched last November.  Catherine’s dedication, deep understanding of scholarly communication, publishing issues, and professionalism are admired by all of us who work with her.  Please join me in congratulating Catherine on her new (old) job!

*  *  *  *  *

Welcome Back, Suzanne Lim

CDL is also delighted to welcome Suzanne Lim back to the CDL. As the Publishing Group Support Programmer, Suzanne will be responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and management of all Publishing Group services and servers. In addition, she will be helping develop the content workflow to support the new eScholarship Repository access interface, now under development. Suzanne’s extensive background as a systems administrator uniquely qualifies her for this role.  She will expand her skills to eventually be able to expand her role to that of XTF programmer.  Please join us in welcoming (back) Suzanne.

There’s an Elephant in the Library; Organizers Promise It Will Never Forget

A group of the nation’s largest research libraries are collaborating to create a repository of their vast digital collections, including millions of books, organizers announced today.  These holdings will be archived and preserved in a single repository called the HathiTrust (http://www.hathitrust.org/). Materials in the public domain will be available for reading online.

Launched jointly by the 12-university consortium known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and the 11 university libraries of the University of California system, the HathiTrust leverages the time-honored commitment to preservation and access to information that university libraries have valued for centuries.  UC’s participation will be coordinated by the California Digital Library (CDL), which brings its deep and innovative experience in digital curation and online scholarship to the HathiTrust.

“This effort combines the expertise and resources of some of the nation’s foremost research libraries and holds even greater promise as it seeks to grow beyond the initial partners,” says John Wilkin, associate university librarian of the University of Michigan and the newly named executive director of HathiTrust.  Hathi (pronounced HAH-tee), the Hindi word for elephant incorporated into the repository’s name, underscores the immensity of this undertaking, Wilkin says.  Elephants also evoke memory, wisdom, and strength.

As of today, HathiTrust contains more than 2 million volumes and approximately ¾ of a billion pages, about 16 percent of which are in the public domain. Public domain materials will be available for reading online.  Materials protected by copyright, although not available for reading online, are given the full range of digital archiving services, thereby offering member libraries a reliable means to preserve their collections. Organizers also expect to use those materials in the research and development of the Trust.

Volumes are added to the repository daily, and content will grow rapidly as the University of California, CIC member libraries, and other prospective partners contribute their digitized content.  Also today, the founding partners announce that the University of Virginia is joining the initiative.

Each of the founding partners brings extensive and highly regarded expertise in the areas of information technology, digital libraries, and project management to this endeavor.  Creation of the HathiTrust supports the digitization efforts of the CIC and the University of California, each of which has entered into collective agreements with Google to digitize portions of the collections of their libraries, more than 10 million volumes in total, as part of the Google Book Search project.  Materials digitized through other means will also be made available through HathiTrust.

HathiTrust provides libraries a means to archive and provide access to their digital content, whether scanned volumes, special collections, or born-digital materials.  Preserving materials for the long term has long been a mission and driving force of leading research libraries.  Their collections, accumulated over centuries, represent a treasury of cultural heritage and investment in the broad public good of promoting scholarship and advancing knowledge.  The representation of these resources in digital form provides expanded opportunities for innovative use in research, teaching, and learning, but must be done with careful attention to effective solutions for the curation and long-term preservation of digital assets.

“The CIC Libraries have always worked at a large scale, with big collections, big user communities and high expectations for service.  They are not intimidated by big challenges, and will bring their comfort with this to the development of the shared digital repository,” says Mark Sandler, director of the CIC Center for Library Initiatives.

“The University of California libraries have an unparalleled reputation for innovation in digital library development and inter-institutional collaboration,” says Laine Farley, interim executive director of the California Digital Library.  “Participation in the HathiTrust continues this tradition and will enable UC to provide its students and scholars with access to one of the most significant digital collections ever assembled.” Adds Brian Schottlaender, the Audrey Geisel University Librarian at UC San Diego, “The University of California Libraries are pleased to work collaboratively with our CIC colleagues to build a rich and coherent resource accessible to scholars for the long-term.”

“Researchers will benefit from the expert curation and consistent access they have long associated with the CIC research libraries,” says Michael McRobbie, president of Indiana University.  “Great libraries have long been essential to outstanding scholarship, and the HathiTrust collaboration among the CIC institutions, the University of California and others provides an essential tool for 21st- century scholars.”

“Digitization of print texts has the promise of being transformative of scholarship and of library practice,” says Paul Courant, University of Michigan librarian, dean of libraries, and former provost.  “In both areas, the ability to search many texts and to preserve texts accessibly creates tremendous opportunities for collaboration amongst scholars and universities. HathiTrust has made a good start, and like the elephant for which it is named, we expect that it will prove able to carry and deliver valuable resources with grace and reliability. ”

“Before this collaboration,” Wilkin says, “the collections in each library existed in isolation. Now we are bringing them together, pooling resources and eliminating redundancies, and producing a valuable research tool that will be greater than the sum of its parts.”

The CIC and the University of California each produce an estimated 10 percent of the new Ph.D.’s granted in the United States each year and together serve more than 600,000 students.

The Midwest-based Committee on Institutional Cooperation includes the universities of the Big Ten, plus the University of Chicago. Partner libraries represent Indiana University, University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Penn State University, Purdue University and University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Combined, they serve more than 385,000 students, employ more than 190,000 faculty and staff, and expend $6 billion in research and development.

The University of California system includes ten research universities at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz plus the systemwide California Digital Library, with more than 220,000 students, 170,000 faculty and staff, and more than 1.5 million alumni living and working around the globe.  The University of California Libraries together comprise the largest single university library system in the world.

Position title: Manager, Infrastructure and Applications Support  (Req. 20070286)
Position location: Oakland, California
Closing date: July 19, 2007

Reporting to the University Librarian and Executive Director, the Manager of Infrastructure and Applications Support is responsible for the technical design, implementation, maintenance, and operations of the common technology enterprise services that support all program and service areas. The Manager is responsible for the Computing and Storage Resource Center comprising a distributed network of CDL-owned resources at three physical locations and for managing the overall integration architecture for computing systems, database management systems, storage systems and network infrastructure. The Manager also provides support to application developers in the CDL’s program areas for the development, staging and production environments, and for collaboration tools supporting the work of CDL and its partners.

HOW TO APPLY:  For a complete job description or to apply for this position, visit the University of California Office of the President employment web site at:  [https://jobs.ucop.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=51793]

UC Office of the President job postings: [http://jobs.ucop.edu/]
Job requisition number: 20070286

Visit the California Digital Library web site at: www.cdlib.org

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity /Affirmative Action employer.